by Dick Francis
It was incredible. I could hardly believe it. I had barely started. All I needed now was double the luck.
The left-hand combination numbers stood at seven-three-eight. I tried the latch. Nothing.
With just a hope that both locks opened to the same sesame, I turned the wheels to one-five-one and tried it. Nothing. Not so easy. I tried reversing it to five-one-five. Nothing. I tried comparable numbers, one-two-one, two-one-two, one-three-one, three-one-three, one-four-one, four-one-four … six … seven … eight … nine … three zeros.
Zilch.
My nerve deserted me. I rolled the left-hand wheels back to seven-three-eight and with the latch closed again set the right-hand lock to one-three-seven. I polished the latches a bit with my shirtsleeve, then I put the briefcase back exactly as I’d found it and took my leaf-trembling self along to the dining car, already regretting, before I got there, that I hadn’t stayed until the Canadian left, knowing that I’d wasted some of the best and perhaps the only chance I would get of seeing what Filmer had brought with him on the train.
Perhaps if I’d tried one-one-five, or five-five-one … or five-one-one, or five-five-five …
Nell was sitting alone at a table in the dining car working on her interminable lists (those usually clipped to the clipboard) and I sat down opposite her feeling ashamed of myself.
She glanced up. ‘Hello,’ she said.
‘Hi.’
She considered me. ‘You look hot. Been running?’
I’d been indulging in good heart exercise while sitting still. I didn’t think I would confess.
‘Sort of,’ I said. ‘How’s things?’
She glanced sideways with disgust at the Canadian.
‘I was just about to go over to the station when that arrived.’
That, as if taking the hint, began quietly to roll, and within twenty seconds we again had a clear view of the station. Most of the train’s passengers, including Filmer and Daffodil, immediately started across the tracks to reboard. Among them, aiming for the racegoers’ carriages, was gaunt-face.
God in heaven, I thought. I forgot about him. I forgot about photographing him. My wits were scattered.
‘What’s the matter?’ Nell said, watching my face.
‘I’ve earned a D minus. A double D minus.’
‘You probably expect too much of yourself,’ she said dispassionately. ‘No one’s perfect.’
‘There are degrees of imperfection.’
‘How big is the catastrophe?’
I thought it over more coolly. Gaunt-face was on the train, and I might have another opportunity. I could undo one of the latches of Filmer’s briefcase and, given time, I might do the other. Correction: given nerve, I might do the other.
‘OK,’ I said, ‘let’s say C minus, could do better. Still not good.’ Millington would have done better.
Zak and Emil arrived together at that point, Emil ready to set the tables for lunch, Zak in theatrical exasperation demanding to know if the actors were to put on the next scene before the meal, as originally planned, and if not, when?
Nell looked at her watch and briefly thought. ‘Couldn’t you postpone it until cocktail time this evening?’
‘We’re supposed to do the following scene then,’ he objected.
‘Well … couldn’t you run them both together?’
He rather grumpily agreed and went away saying they would have ro rehearse. Nell smiled sweetly at his departing back and asked if I’d ever noticed how important everything was to actors? Everything except the real world, of course.
‘Pussycat,’ I said.
‘But I have such tiny, indulgent claws.’
Oliver and Cathy arrived and with Emil began spreading tablecloths and setting places. I got to my feet and helped them, and Nell with teasing amusement watched me fold pink napkins into water lilies and said, ‘Well, well, hidden depths,’ and I answered, ‘You should see my dishwashing,’ which were the sort of infantile surface remarks of something we both guessed might suddenly become serious. The surface meanwhile was safe and shimmering and funny, and would stay that way until we were ready for change.
As usual, the passengers came early into the dining car, and I faded into the scenery in my uniform and avoided Nell’s eyes.
The passengers hadn’t over-enjoyed their sojourn in the station, it appeared, as they had been fallen upon by the flock of pressmen who had taken Xanthe back again to the brink of hysteria, and had asked Mercer whether it wasn’t unwise to flaunt the privilege of wealth in his private car, and hadn’t he invited trouble by adding it to the train. Indignation on his behalf was thick in the air. Everyone knew he was public spiritedly on the trip For the Sake of Canadian Racing.
The Lorrimores, all four of them, arrived together to murmurs of sympathy, but the two young ones split off immediately from their parents and from each other, all of them gravitating to their various havens: the parents went to join Filmer and Daffodil of their own free will, Xanthe made a straight piteous line to Mrs Young, and Sheridan grabbed hold of Nell, who was by this time standing, saying that he needed her to sit with him, she was the only decent human being on the whole damn train.
Nell, unsure of the worth of his compliment, nevertheless sat down opposite him, even if temporarily. Keeping Sheridan on a straight or even a wavy line definitely came into the category of crisis control.
Sheridan had the looks which went with Julius’s name, Apollo: he was tall, handsome, nearly blond, a child of the sun. The ice, the arrogance, the lack of common sense and of control, these were the darkside tragedy. A mini psychopath, I thought, and maybe not so mini, at that, if Xanthe thought he should be in jail.
The Australian Unwins, sitting with the rival owners of Flokati, were concerned about a lifelessness they had detected in Upper Gumtree due to the fact that on the train their horse had been fed a restricted diet of compressed food nuts and high grade hay, and the Flokati people were cheerfully saying that on so long a stretch without exercise, good hay was best. Hay was calming. ‘We don’t want them climbing the walls,’ Mr Flokati said. Upper Gumtree had looked asleep, Mrs Unwin remarked with disapproval. The Flokati people beamed while trying to look sympathetic. If Upper Gumtree proved listless, so much the better for Flokati’s chances.
It seemed that all of the owners had taken the opportunity of visiting the horses while the train was standing still, and listen though I might I could hear no one else reporting trouble.
Upper Gumtree, it seemed to me, might revive spectacularly on the morrow, given oats, fresh air and exercise. His race was still more than forty-eight hours away. If gaunt-face had in fact given Upper Gumtree something tranquillising, the effects would wear off long before then.
On reflection, I thought it less and less probable that he had done any such thing: he would have to have by-passed the dragon-lady, Leslie Brown, for a start. Yet presumably at times she left her post … to eat and sleep.
‘I said,’ Daffodil said to me distinctly, ‘would you bring me a clean knife? I’ve dropped mine on the floor.’
‘Certainly, madam,’ I said, coming back abruptly to the matter in hand and realising with a shock that she had already asked me once. I fetched her a knife fast. She nodded merely, her attention again on Filmer, and he, I was mightily relieved to see, had taken no notice of the small matter. But how could I, I thought ruefully, how could I have possibly stopped concentrating when I was so close to him. Only one day ago the proximity had had my pulse racing.
The train had made its imperceptible departure and was rolling along again past the uninhabited infinity of rocks and lakes and conifers that seemed to march on to the end of the world. We finished serving lunch and coffee and cleared up, and as soon as I decently could I left the kitchen and set off forward up the train.
George, whom I looked for first, was in his office eating a fat ragged beef sandwich and drinking diet coke.
‘How did it go,’ I asked, ‘in Thunder Bay?’
; He scowled, but halfheartedly. ‘They found out nothing I hadn’t told them. There was nothing to see. They’re thinking now that whoever uncoupled the private car was on it when the train left Car-tier.’
‘On the private car?’ I said in surprise.
‘That’s right. The steam tube could have been disconnected in the station, eh? Then the train leaves Cartier with the saboteur in the Lorrimores’ car. Then less than a mile out of Cartier, eh?, our saboteur pulls up the rod that undoes the coupling. Then the private car rolls to a stop, and he gets off and walks back to Cartier.’
‘But why should anyone do that?’
‘Grow up, sonny. There are people in this world who cause trouble because it makes them feel important. They’re ineffective, eh?, in their lives. So they burn things … and smash things … paint slogans on walls … leave their mark on something, eh? And wreck trains. Put slabs of concrete on the rails. I’ve seen it done. Power over others, that’s what it’s about. A grudge against the Lorrimores, most like. Power over them, over their possessions. That’s what those investigators think.’
‘Hm,’ I said. ‘If that’s the case, the saboteur wouldn’t have walked back to Cartier but up to some vantage point from where he could watch the smash.’
George looked startled. ‘Well … I suppose he might.’
‘Arsonists often help to put out the fires they’ve started.’
‘You mean he would have waited around … to help with the wreck. Even to help with casualties?’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Pure, heady power, to know you’d caused such a scene.’
‘I didn’t see anyone around,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘when we went back to the car. I shone the lamp … there wasn’t anyone moving, eh?, or anything like that.’
‘So, what are the investigators going to do?’ I asked.
His eyes crinkled and the familiar chuckle escaped. ‘Write long reports, eh? Tell us never to take private cars. Blame me for not preventing it, I dare say.’
He didn’t seem worried at the idea. His shoulders and his mind were broad.
I left him with appreciation and went forward into the central dining car where all the actors were sitting in front of coffee cups and poring over typed sheets of stage directions, muttering under their breaths and sometimes exclaiming aloud.
Zak raised his eyes vaguely in my direction but it would have been tactless to disrupt the thoughts behind them, so I pressed on forwards, traversing the dayniter and the sleeping cars and arriving at the forward dome car. There were a lot of people about everywhere, but no one looked my way twice.
I knocked eventually on the door of the horse car and, after inspection and formalities that would have done an Iron Curtain country proud, was admitted again by Ms Brown to the holy of holies.
Rescrawling Tommy Titmouse on her list I was interested to see how long it had grown, and I noticed that even Mercer hadn’t been let in without signing. I asked the dragon-lady if anyone had come in who wasn’t an owner or a groom, and she bridled like a thin turkey and told me that she had conscientiously checked every visitor against her list of bona fide owners, and only they had been admitted.
‘But you wouldn’t know them all by sight,’ I said.
‘What do you mean?’ she demanded.
‘Supposing for instance someone came and said they were Mr Unwin, you would check that his name was on the list and let him in?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘And suppose he wasn’t Mr Unwin, although he said he was?’
‘You’re just being difficult,’ she said crossly. ‘I cannot refuse entry to the owners. They were given the right to visit, but they don’t have to produce passports. Nor do their wives or husbands.’
I looked down her visitors’ list. Filmer appeared on it twice, Daffodil once. Filmer’s signature was large and flamboyant, demanding attention. No one had written Filmer in any other way: it seemed that gaunt-face hadn’t gained entry by giving Filmer’s name, at least. It didn’t mean he hadn’t given someone else’s.
I gave Leslie Brown her list back and wandered around under her eagle eye looking at the horses. They swayed peacefully to the motion, standing diagonally across the stalls, watching me incuriously, seemingly content. I couldn’t perceive that Upper Gumtree looked any more sleepy than any of the others: his eyes were as bright, and he pricked his ears when I came near him.
All of the grooms, except one who was asleep on some hay bales, had chosen not to sit in the car with their charges, and I imagined it was because of Leslie Brown’s daunting presence: racing lads on the whole felt a companionable devotion to their horses, and I would have expected more of them to be sitting on the hay bales during the day.
‘What happens at night on the train?’ I asked Leslie Brown. ‘Who guards the horses then?’
‘I do,’ she said tartly. ‘They’ve given me a roomette or some such, but I take this thing seriously. I slept in here last night, and will do so again after Winnipeg, and after Lake Louise. I don’t see why you’re so worried about anyone slipping past me.’ She frowned at me, not liking my suspicions. ‘When I go to the bathroom, I leave one groom in here and lock the horses’ car door behind me. I’m never away more than a few minutes. I insist on one of the grooms being in here at all times. I am very well aware of the need for security, and I assure you that the horses are well guarded.’
I regarded her thin obstinate face and knew she believed to her determined soul in what she said.
‘As for the barns at Winnipeg and the stabling at Calgary,’ she added righteously, ‘they are someone else’s responsibility. I can’t answer for what happens to the horses there.’ She was implying, plain enough, that no one else could be trusted to be as thorough as herself.
‘Do you ever have any fun, Ms Brown?’ I asked.
‘What do you mean,’ she said, raising surprised eyebrows. ‘All this is fun.’ She waved a hand in general round the horse car. ‘I’m having the time of my life.’ And she wasn’t being ironic: she truly meant it.
‘Well,’ I said a little feebly, ‘then that’s fine.’
She gave two sharp little nods, as if that finished the matter, which no doubt it did, except that I still looked for gaps in her defences. I wandered one more time round the whole place, seeing the sunlight slant in through the barred unopenable windows (which would keep people out as well as horses in), smelling the sweet hay and the faint musty odour of the horses themselves, feeling the swirls of fresh air coming from the rows of small ventilators along the roof, hearing the creaking and rushing noises in the car’s fabric and the grind of the electricity-generating wheels under the floor.
In that long, warm, friendly space there were animals worth at present a total of many millions of Canadian dollars: worth more if any of them won at Winnipeg or Vancouver. I stood for a long while looking at Voting Right. If Bill Baudelaire’s mother knew her onions, in this undistinguished looking bay lay the dormant seed of greatness.
Maybe she was right. Vancouver would tell.
I turned away, cast a last assessing glance at Laurentide Ice, who looked coolly back, thanked the enthusiastic dragon for her cooperation (prim acknowledgment) and began a slow walk back through the train, looking for gaunt-face.
I didn’t see him. He could have been behind any of the closed doors. He wasn’t in the forward dome car, upstairs or down, nor in the open dayniter. I sought out and consulted separately with three of the sleeping car attendants in the racegoers’ sleeping cars who frowned in turn and said that first, the sort of jacket I was describing was worn by thousands, and second, everyone tended to look gaunt outside in the cold air. All the same, I said, if they came across anyone fitting that description in their care, please would they tell George Burley his name and room number.
Sure, they each said, but wasn’t this an odd thing for an actor to be asking? Zak, I improvised instantly at the first enquiry, had thought the gaunt man had an interesting face and he wanted to ask if he could use h
im in a scene. Ah, yes, that made sense. If they found him, they would tell George.
When I got back to George, I told him what I’d asked. He wrinkled his brow. ‘I saw a man like that at Thunder Bay,’ he said. ‘But I probably saw several men like that in all this trainload. What do you want him for?’
I explained that I’d told the sleeping car attendants that Zak wanted to use him in a scene.
‘But you?’ George said. ‘What do you want him for yourself?’
I looked at him and he looked back. I was wondering how far I should trust him and had an uncomfortable impression that he knew what I was thinking.
‘Well,’ I said finally, ‘he was talking to someone I’m interested in.’
I got a long bright beam from the shiny eyes.
‘Interested in … in the line of duty?’
‘Yes.’
He didn’t ask who it was and I didn’t tell him. I asked him instead if he himself had talked to any of the owners’ party.
‘Of course I have,’ he said. ‘I always greet passengers, eh? when they board. I tell them I’m the Conductor, tell them where my office is, tell them if they’ve any problems to bring them to me.’
‘And do they? Have they?’
He chuckled. ‘Most of the complaints go to your Miss Richmond, and she brings them to me.’
‘Miss Richmond …’ I repeated.
‘She’s your boss, isn’t she? Tall pretty girl with her hair in a plait today, eh?’
‘Nell,’ I said.
‘That’s right. Isn’t she your boss?’
‘Colleague.’
‘Right, then. The sort of problems the owners’ party have had on this trip so far are a tap that won’t stop dripping, a blind that won’t stay down in one of the bedrooms, eh?, and a lady who thought one of her suitcases had been stolen, only it turned up in someone else’s room.’ He beamed. ‘Most of the owners have been along to see the horses. When they see me, they stop to talk.’
‘What do they say?’ I asked. ‘What sort of things?’
‘Only what you’d expect. The weather, the journey, the scenery. They ask what time we get to Sudbury, eh? Or Thunder Bay, or Winnipeg, or whatever.’